Wednesday, May 20, 2015

As most pundits and
economists have noted, the employment situation in the United States has
improved substantially since just after the Great Recession when the official
U-3 unemployment rate hit a peak of 10 percent. That said, recent data
released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows one employment measure that
has had a significant negative impact on American households and family units.

Let's open with a
definition. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics a family
is:

"...a group of two
or more persons residing together who are related by birth, marriage, or
adoption. The count of families is for "primary" families
only, that is, the householder and all other persons related to and
residing with the householder. Families are classified either as
married-couple families or as families maintained by women or men without
spouses. Families include those without children as well as those
with children under 18."

In its most recent
Employment Characteristics of Families data release, BLS statistics show that
there were 80.889 million families in the United States in 2014, up slightly
from 80.445 million in 2013. Here is a breakdown of all American family
units by ethnicity and race:

White - 64.476 million
families - 79.7 percent of all families

Black or African American
- 9.793 million families - 12.1 percent of all families

Asian - 4.374
million families - 5.4 percent of all families

Hispanic or Latino -
12.178 million families - 15.1 percent of all families

In 2014, there were
16.057 million families without an employed family member, down
slightly from 16.127 million families in 2013.

Now, let's look at the
percentage of American families have had no family member employed over
the period from 2003 to 2014:

As you can see, during
and just after the Great Recession, the percentage of all
American families that had no family member employed grew significantly
from 17.8 percent in 2008 to a peak of 20.2 percent in 2011, an increase of 2.4
percentage points or 13.5 percent. Since then, the percentage of all
American families that had no employed family member has declined very
slightly to 19.9 percent in 2014, a drop of only 0.3 percentage points or 1.5
percent. That is a rather insignificant decline in the percentage of
American families with no employed member, particularly considering that the
economy was more than five years into the post-Great Recession
"recovery" during 2014.

In 2014, the percentage
of families with no family member employed varied greatly by ethnic or
racial background as shown on this bar graph:

By percentage, more than
twice as many black families had no employed family member when compared
to Asian families.

Here is a bar
graph showing how the percentage of families with no employed family of
each ethnic and racial group has varied since 2003:

Here are the minimums and
maximums and current percentage for each ethnic and racial group and the year that the minimum and
maximum occurred:

White

- minimum 17.4
percent in 2007

- maximum 20.2 percent in 2011

- current 19.9 percent

Black

- minimum 21.1
percent in 2007

- maximum 25.8 percent in 2011

- current 23.6 percent

Asian

- minimum 10.1
percent in 2006

- maximum 12.7 percent in 2010

- current 11.5 percent

Hispanic

- minimum 12.4
percent in 2007

- maximum 15.8 percent in 2010 and 2011

- current 14.1 percent

It is also interesting to
note that the percentage of households with no family member employed
varies greatly by the gender of the head of the household. In 2014,
25.6 percent of households that were maintained by a woman had no employed
family member and 17 percent of households that were maintained by a man had no
employed family member. As well, both the husband and wife were
employed in 47.7 percent of married-couple families.

It is rather surprising to
see that more than 16 million American families have no one in the
workforce and that the percentage of households with no family member
working has changed little since the end of the Great Recession unemployment
crisis. Some of this can be attributed to the BLS definition of
"unemployed" since, by definition, unemployed persons are those that
are actively seeking a job. It does not include those that do not have a
job and are not actively seeking one (i.e. discouraged workers). That
said, this data shows us that there are still an elevated percentage of
American households that have seen little to cheer about during this
inter-recessional economic expansion.

1 comment:

Apparently households consisting of 1 adult don't even count in this "families" discussion. There are still many involuntarily unemployed Americans in these households. If you want solutions, here it is:http://www.change.org/petitions/demand-workforce-guided-job-creation.

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About Me

I have been an avid follower of the world's political and economic scene since the great gold rush of 1979 - 1980 when it seemed that the world's economic system was on the verge of collapse. I am most concerned about the mounting level of government debt and the lack of political will to solve the problem. Actions need to be taken sooner rather than later when demographic issues will make solutions far more difficult. As a geoscientist, I am also concerned about the world's energy future; as we reach peak cheap oil, we need to find viable long-term solutions to what will ultimately become a supply-demand imbalance.